You Are a Product!
For sale. Yes, you are. If you have decided you want to make money as an actor, get hired as a performer and be paid for it, then you are officially a product. On a shelf waiting to be pulled and placed in a cart and ready for check-out.
This is the part of Hollywood that has just never bothered me. I’m a commodity and I learned this long before I came to Hollywood. The bottom line is, if you’re auditioning for “on camera” or “on stage,” then the reality is your body — your physical being — is a huge part of the equation and it makes up your product. You just happen to be a person.
Admit it. We get caught up being frustrated by this business, by stereotypes and by being judged by what we look like. The cold, hard reality is that the old cliche “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is now something a little different for Hollywood: “Casting is in the eye of the employer.” And I’m not even talking about the casting director. I’m talking about the directors of films, the producers and show runners in television, the ad agency and the client in commercials — the people paying the freight.
You don’t get to decide whether or not you’re the physical type that they want in their show. That’s their right. You may be “leading actor” to someone else, but you may not be “leading” in for whatever show/episode you’re auditioning.
So much of how you’re viewed as a product does come down to your physical exterior — your outside. Conversely, your art, your craft, your talents/skill is what’s on the inside. That’s the juice. And it’s what you get a chance to show when you get in the room.
No matter what anybody says to you, you’re always going to be the right type because you’re just the right type. That doesn’t mean we always need your type. When you look in a full-length mirror, there is somebody in your city that is pretty close to your type. THEY’RE WORKING!
Your essence — the center point in your chest. What makes you, you! I say it all the time: a really bad guy on a soap opera doesn’t look like a bad guy on a primetime television drama. And neither of those actors/characters may look like the really bad guy in a feature film. Things get cast differently because of the medium, the tone of the project and the surrounding cast.
I cannot control whether or not I get cast, which is why you cannot under any circumstances take casting personally. You’re a product for sale. You’re unique, you’re wonderful. You’re only like you. But there are a zillion factors as to why we do or don’t need you on a given day.